Posted
by
Roblimo
on Thursday December 19, 2013 @04:21PM
from the let's-meet-on-the-holodeck-at-2100 dept.

The Virtuix Omni "is an omnidirectional treadmill video game peripheral for virtual reality games currently in development by Virtuix," says Wikipedia. With this device and an Oculus Rift, Razer Hydra or a similar "immersive" headset, you can play games equipped to use these devices with your whole body moving in any direction you choose. If you think you saw this product on the Shark Tank TV show or a pitch for it at Kickstarter.com, you're right. You did. The Virtuix Omni people have been pushing their product hard, everywhere they can. Tim ran into their product manager, Colton Jacobs, at the recent AppsWorld conference in London. This video is Tim's record of their conversation.

Tim:So
Colton, what are we looking at here in your booth here at Apps World?

Colton:Yes,
so we are looking at the Virtuix Omni – it is a virtual reality
interface that is going to allow you to run, walk, jump in the real
world and have your movements translate in the virtual world.

Tim:Alright.
Now, over here we have a willing victim with an Oculus headset and
running around in the base. Talk about what the base is made of.

Colton:Sure,
so the base is a proprietary type of material. He is actually wearing
these special shoes. The shoes are the same kind of material in the
bottom as the base that he is walking on. So it basically makes it
almost a frictionless free surface. So all he has to do is lean
forward, put his weight down, and his feet are going to slide back.
It basically mimics a treadmill without having any moving parts. And
so that’s what makes it feel very natural and also allows us to
track their movements and put it into anykind of virtual
environment or PC game that uses WASD or the arrow keys.

Tim:So
the output is really that simple?

Colton:It
really is. Again, we are playing here Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2,
and really we can play almost any PC game that uses the keyboard for
movement. And so you can play all your favorite games.

Tim:Now
this was a Kickstarter project, at least in part. Talk about that
process.

Colton:Oh,
the Kickstarter community is amazing.Very great early
adopters, and very supportive. We actually raised over $1 million in
Kickstarter, so we can’t thank our Kickstarter supporters
enough. They are the reason that this has come into existence. And so
through that process, we are now able to start the company, and we
are getting our mass production up and running now. For a timeline,
we are going to be shipping Kickstarter units around
January-February. And we are taking pre-orders on our website right
now. Those are shipping around March-April timeline. So really this
is coming into existence in 2014.

Tim:Now
people are going to be able to put these in their basements, either
they are going to put them in arcades, what are some of the uses you
envision for this?

Colton:I
am sorry.Can you repeat that one?

Tim:I
said what are some of the uses that you envision. People can put them
in their basements, they can put them in arcades.

Colton:Oh
sure, absolutely. So again, the first market we are kind of going
into is the video game market. It is because again we integrate so
easily with that. But there are lots of other professional
applications, for example, virtual architecture, simulation and
training as well as virtual tourism, as well as virtual museums. I
mean, just imagine walking around having dinosaurs around you instead
of being in a dinosaur museum. So there are a lot of really
interesting applications. And I am just really scratching the surface
there. There will be more and more to come.

Tim:And
as a device, some things actually really call out for a complicated
or API of some kind. If your output is that simple, it looks like
this is something that could be used to control things, without much
the company needing to do much at all.

Colton:So
really again, the integration is very simple. All we are doing is
installing a driver in your computer, which allows the Omni to be
recognized as an input and really when you are walking forward, it is
just generating W on a keyboard. So it is the most simple integration
that we can possibly make. There will be an SDK that will come along
with the Omni later that will allow for more movements to be mapped
to the Omni. And that’s for game developers and application
developers as well.

Tim:Now
some practicalities to this. How heavy is each unit?

Colton:So
right now each unit is 110 lbs.That will be the whole
unit. It does need to be nice and sturdy at the bottom since you are
going to be running and jumping and a lot of complex moves. So it is
a nice weight but not excessively heavy.

Tim:And
what about the arm and everything else? What comes if somebody orders
this? What will the Kickstarter supporters start getting in the mail
soon?

Colton:So
they are going to get most likely two packages.

Tim:We
will walk over here and take a look.

Colton:Sure.
So they are mostly going to get two packages where the base itself
will be separated. And you will install the base. As you can see, it
is separated in separate panels. And those are all installed
together. And the arms and the ring will come separate as well. So
that’s all the installation that will be needed. And then for
storage ease actually, the ring and the arms can actually separate
from the base and so it can all fold back, you can go ahead and store
it underneath the bed and put the arms and ring in a closet or
something like that.

Tim:Now
the safety of this, it looks sturdy but it also looks like you need
to have the right height – can short people use it?

Colton:Safety
is definitely one of our main concerns. Because when you are wearing
the Oculus Rift or like virtual reality goggles, you are really
blindfolded, and you are also running on a basically treadmill
surface, it is a slippery surface, so the harness is really what is
the main safety feature. You are wearing a basically a rock climbing
harness and that should catch you should you slip and fall as well as
the ring. Again like you are seeing, it is very very sturdy. And so
that’s what the harness would catch with.

Tim:What
is the ring itself made out of?

Colton:The
ring itself will be made of steel and plastic. So again, we are
looking for steel – something very very strong.

Tim:I
overheard you a few minutes ago, saying that you run quite a bit when
you play one of these games – how much do you run?

Colton:Honestly,
over here, demoing a show like this, we can run upwards of five miles
a day.

Tim:Okay.
Without going far from your booth here?

Colton:Exactly.We
don’t go very far at all. They don’t let us out of the
booth.

Tim:Forward
motion is about the only thing I see practical on here. Can you do
other things, more complex motions, readable?

Colton:Sure.
So we are going to be adding integrated tracking into the base, and
that is going to actually allow some more of an analog control so we
will be able to tell what direction you are moving, as well as how
fast you are moving.So that’s what we can add into the
game. We want people to be able to know how fast they are going, and
then we want the direction to be decoupled from the looking, because
right now where he is looking is where he is going. But with more
analog control, and built-in tracking we can then separate those two.
So you can walk in one direction and look in another direction.

Tim:And
the output from this, is it an USB output?

Colton:It
can be a simple USB output, as simple it could be.

Tim:Well,
this is like a lot of fun to do.

Colton:Oh
yeah, definitely, when you are in the virtual world, you really have
a hard time coming out.

Notice how little force they need and how easily their feet slip. This is a good thing. The problem with a treadmill is that you need to move this bulky rubber band around underneath you. It weighs a lot, as well. If you power a treadmill and use sensors to avoid using human power to move it, your power budget just went through the roof. Not to mention the need to spin the treadmill so the player doesn't walk off of it. Additionally, you're looking at moving parts subject to high wear and tear, versus this, which is mostly solid-state. I'd say this is a pretty inventive way of tackling the problem domain.

Dance Dance Revolution died out a while ago. The Wii was amusing for a while, but we just sit and flick now. The Kinect is pretty awesome, but we mostly just want to yell "GRENADE!" at it while slumping and playing shoot-'em-ups. The kids still jump around, but the novelty wears off them quickly too.

These would be cool in the party bus that entertains kids birthday parties, but that's about it.

You speak only for the stereotypical overweight gamer. Some of us keep fit and look for opportunities to be active while gaming.

Going for a serious hike while playing a PC game would be an excellent next step beyond what the Wii and 360+Kinect offer. You miss out on how great it can feel to simply be alive and healthy if you let your body go like so many foolish people do.

You speak only for the stereotypical overweight gamer. Some of us keep fit and look for opportunities to be active while gaming.

Or, you know, just want to have fun.

I still play tennis on my Wii with full-motion swings, because it's a lot more fun that way. And I play for fun, not to win (winning is fun, so it's a secondary path, but not the primary goal).

I would absolutely love to run through Skyrim. Maybe not every morning, but just for the cool factor. Also, I do own a Unity 3D engine. Being able to build your own environment to run around in and stuff? Wow.

And then... when I go really crazy, I'm imagining playing pen & paper roleplaying games and having something prepared for this for the hacker who goes into the matrix, or the shaman who goes on a dream journey or whatever...

It's obviously always a matter of amount of work vs. amount of fun gained, but I regularily spice up my pen&paper RPG sessions with gimmicks. Once made a section of a dwarven mine in Unity 3D and put it up on the video beamer as the group entered and then let them move around in it.

There's only so much you can do with words when you describe a dark place lit only by the torches the group carries, and the impact to actually have it in front of them - to move forward cautiously as more of the cavern or tu

Many of us have no desire to pay for and go to a gym, prefering solitary workouts, so something like this at home is much better for us than something at a gym.

Who says it goes in the living room? I have a space at the back of my home-theater that would be perfect for a VR area. Obviously this isn't for everyone, and I don't expect anything like this to catch on with console gaming any time soon, but it's something that many of us have been waiting for.

Speak for yourself. I play Wii games with as much physicality as possible - that's kind of the whole point. If I just wanted to sit and mash buttons I'd be on the PC.

And I think you're missing one of the big points here - people are lazy in large part because for a few generations now we've been discouraging children from actually going outside and playing, especially within cities. Couple that with the rise in popularity of TV and video games that make some of the most short-term compelling experiences

There is a strong correlation between time spent indoors and rates of myopia. It's not just a genetic thing that you need glasses. The only thing that's not clear is whether:
a) eyes' ability to focus on distant objects is atrophying from lack of use, e.g. actually looking at things far away
or b) low light levels indoors or other properties of artificial light are causing damage
My preferred explanation is A - an eye physically changes its focus as you look at objects nearer or further. Being in one conf

I think in that case the Oculus could actually result in a a lessening of nearsightedness. If I recall correctly the optics in the Dev kit are calibrated so that your eyes can relax and focus at 80 feet. When is the last time most people, especially gamers, spent much time focused on anything that far away? Certainly not often when indoors. In fact it might even end up going to the other extreme and promoting far-sightedness among heavy users as the muscles needed to focus up close atrophy. In practice

Your eyes "focus" at 80 feet only in the parralax sense, not in terms of the actual optics of your eye.
There is no actual way to simulate different depths in this way, other than with a physical lens.

Assuming that it works similarly to Sony's HMD, it will use lenses to actually make your eyes feel like they're focusing on a distant object. I wish they didn't, since this means I have to wear glasses under the HMD, when normally I just need glasses for driving.

Not at all - I'm not discussing the stereoscopic depth effects at all - just the optical pathway between the screen and your eye. As I understand it the lens system in the dev kit requires your eye to focus at 80' at all times in order to bring the screen into focus. If you think about it it's pretty obvious that this thing must be possible - the screen is actually only a couple inches from your eye, closer than most people can focus comfortably, if at all. If it weren't possible to artificially increase

The Virtuix Omni is a gimmick that is trying to ride the coattails of the Oculus Rifts success. Dont let cheesy crap like this distract from the Oculus. Really the only addon I can see being actually useful for the Rift would be positional controls, like the STEM. But even thats in doubt if Oculus vr release positional controls of their own beside the release of the consumer rift.

I cannot think of a better addition to it save for a 3d pointing device. (for guns/swords/light sabers etc)

The immersion factor alone would be worthwhile in of itself but it is not the only benefit.It would also turn gaming into a sedentary activity into an exercise regime. For me that would be the primary reason for purchasing this rig.

Anything that gets people up and moving about is a good thing in the first world and if you can get them waving their arms about to boot it will literally save lives.

On the one hand I'm inclined to agree - certainly it's not something that would see much demand without a VR headset, and it seems like the control system is extremely crude at present.

On the other hand once you have a decent VR headset then the control system becomes the "bottleneck" on immersiveness. Walking around the virtual world would certainly seem to be a far more immersive experience than diddling a joystick. Certainly I want to at least try it. And it does seem like these folks have come up with

The Oculus, as awesome as it is, only works well with linear movement. It's great for space, mech, plane and car sims. Basically any game where you're in a cabin. Once you want to walk around like a real person you find out that you can't turn around, and moving the camera out of sync with the head is disorienting.

I considered getting an Omni, but in the end decided not to because: it's very heavy and would cost a fortune to ship, it takes a lot of space that I don't ha

This. When the first announcement about Occulus Rift was made, I went through the usual Oh-wow-cool-I-want-to-have-one-oh-wait-crappy-resolution-shit-forget-it cycle that I've been through two dozen times over the past 15 years. But then they upgraded the resolution and it's actually starting to be a really interesting option.

Most of the games they are aimed at have crouch and prone as integral movements. The lack of this in the Omni seems like a deal killer for me. Am I missing something?
From the FAQ:
"What movements can you perform on the Omni?

Besides walking, the Omni allows for running, jumping, and strafing (sideways stepping) in 360 degrees. The Omni software provides gesture recognition that translates movements to mouse and key strokes that steer the avatar in the virtual environment."

In the TED demo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1niFHFIbD0M) the founder specifically mentions crouching as one of the motions. But yeah, nothing about lying down.I was more curious of simulating uphill/downhill motion, like climbing stairs.

Oog, now that will be a tough one. I suspect the raw sensory input of the Omni is very much like walking around the world in a giant gerbil ball, and I don't see it getting much better any time soon - at least not in a budget-minded system like this. If instead of a slippery surface you had something like a variable-friction caster plate on hydraulics you could at least give a sense of slope without people sliding of the low side, but stairs? Other than some sort of programmable surface I don't see it ha

In the TED demo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1niFHFIbD0M) the founder specifically mentions crouching as one of the motions. But yeah, nothing about lying down.I was more curious of simulating uphill/downhill motion, like climbing stairs.

I don't imagine uphill/downhill would be that hard. The Omni could just have three leg/pistons that raise/lower to tilt the platform depending on the direction you're facing.

There are already treadmills that raise and lower the front end to create more incline.

That's just begging for someone to lose their footing, fall down, and take out half their teeth on the waistband component. Or worse.

I have a hell of a time finding shoes that fit properly, thanks to "duck" feet (wide forefoot, narrow heel.) Somehow I doubt there are going to be all that many fitting options for the "special shoes" required by this device.

Ah well, until the lawsuits roll in from the broken teeth and they get banned from the market for all the injuries I'm sure they'll prove quite pop

Maybe some research first before assuming you are soooo much smarter than everybody else that you can think of an (stupidly) obvious flaw in 5 mins and that the creators who have spent years developing and testing this have not already solved it.

The only trolling I see is yours. You mention nothing about what they've done for this "research" you mention. You don't point out any scenes in the video to support your theory that they've addressed the concern.

Although I am excited to see all these VR technologies, there is a certain irony in taking VR realism to the level in which it reproduces all the annoyances of actual reality, such as having to get up of the couch and physically moving through space in order to get somewhere you want to go.

Will the first VR video game blockbuster be a virtual gym that you can go to after spending the day at a virtual desk at a virtual workplace?

Been reading up on these ODT. Sounds cool. While I understand the benefit of adding an Oculus Rift etc., why is that considered a requirement?
I'd rather play a FPS using this in front of several screens going nearly 360 degrees, so that I can do true aiming with a gun controller. Shouldn't the HMD be optional?
Better yet, come up with an included holo-display that moves with the player.

I built something like this at home except I used a large ball on rollers. I like their design better. I was never able to get a reliable way to do crouching and jumping and none of their videos show someone doing it. Are they stuck in the same place I gave up? Anyone see a video with a jump or crouch?